Last version released October 15th 2006. New version actually in preparation.

MARSBASE: THE SIMULATOR OF HUMAN ACTIVITIES ON MARS

PARTICIPANTS :

Benoit Boulant : Graphist (rovers and buildings)

Paul Lafortune : Scenario and development advisor

Marc Salotti : Project manager, Delphi developper

And others ...

First design in July 2000 (such a long way ...)

1. Introduction

This game has been developed with the help of a Delphi Platform. In fact, it is similar to "Age of Empires" without the battles.
The player guides the astronauts' movements and actions which enable them to develop new technologies thereby allowing the creation of new items as well as generating the chemical production of new elements.
The main goal of this educational game resides in the problems and the finding of technical solution during the setting up and the development of the first Martian bases such as : the methane production (Sabatier reactor) to fuel up the rover, the search for water and its extraction, the building of solar panels, and other actions typical of the game.

2. User interface

All the actions can be commanded from the mouse:

Click on an astronaut, then click on another spot of the map, and here is the astronaut moving his arms and legs, walking towards the place you've just selected.

Is the map bigger than the screen? No problem, just set the cursor of the mouse on the limit of the screen and the map will quickly scroll towards the chosen direction.

Click on the rover (now it is selected), then click on the chemical unit, and here is the rover moving to fill up with propergol (CH4/O2) and oxygen.

3. What has been done

DOWNLOADING

Would you like to test what has been done? Just do it! Download the following file. It's a Zip file that you have to unzip before using it with the option of preserving the subfolders. Once all the files and subfolders are extracted in your chosen folder, execute marsbase.exe. Please be indulgent, this current version is still a preliminary one and some functions have not been implemented yet. The game has been tested (but not carefully), so it should work.
Please feel free to get in touch with me for any problem.

Known problem: the width of the screen should be equal or less than 1024
pixels.